Page 6 of Her Sensual Protector

“Can you think of anything that your dad might have been doing besides inoculating children for polio, that might have pissed off the Haqqani Network?”

Daisy set down her fork and pressed her napkin against her clean lips. “My father could have done damn near anything. Let’s begin with all the stupid moves he made in Pakistan. Dr. Williams was incensed that he had put their entire project in danger by his foolhardy moves. Seriously, polio is this close,” she put her thumb and forefinger together up to her face. “This close to being eradicated in Pakistan and Afghanistan. These are the last two countries where it is endemic. Until men and women like Dr. Williams, and all of the local villagers who are working with him, can disrupt the transmission of this virus in Pakistan and Afghanistan, all other countries are at risk of importing polio into their country, especially those countries that are vulnerable.”

“Which ones are vulnerable?”

“Those with poor immunization plans or poor health and public services. This is vitally important. And Ethan Squires is letting his impatience put it all at risk. He never cares about long-term repercussions. He just plows ahead, because his ego demands an immediate reward.”

Leo heard the bitterness in her voice. It sounded deeply personal and filled with pain. What had her dad done to her to deserve those thoughts from such a compassionate woman?

“So he’s done this before?”

“Oh yeah, he has. It doesn’t matter whose life he puts at risk, as long as he gets that adrenaline high of being the medical God of the moment.”

“Who else has he harmed?” Leo asked gently.

“You name it. The great doctor dragged our family to Swaziland in 1991 to help combat the measles outbreak. This was when the vaccines were available, but cases were surging. My mom didn’t want to go. But she was young and tired, and really didn’t know just how dangerous it was. He took them into the thick of things. Karen was ten and Brian was eight when they both contracted the disease. Karen almost died, and Brian was left sterile. To this day I don’t know why she stayed with him after that.”

“But she did, because you’re here,” Leo nodded to her to keep eating. She moved some of her food around on her plate.

“Yes, she did,” Daisy admitted reluctantly. “I was a surprise baby. After the measles outbreak, Mom mostly stayed in the States, but she agreed one last time to go overseas. She said my father guilted her into it because he hadn’t had a chance to spend much time with me. He promised it would be safe.” Her voice trailed off.

Leo saw how her fist clenched on the table and he wanted to console her, but it wasn’t his place.

“Was it safe?” Leo asked after the waiter left.

She shook her head. “This time it wasn’t a disease. Mom got pregnant again. We were in the Brazilian rain forest. He had left us in a village that only spoke Portuguese, Mom and I didn’t. She ended up having a miscarriage. I remember her crying in pain and me trying to give her food and water, trying to fix her, but she was too delirious to take in food or water. I kept kissing her forehead like she always did to me when I was sick, thinking that was something that would make her better, but it didn’t. Finally, I went to the neighbors next door begging for help. They didn’t understand me. There was no ambulance, nothing like that. A woman came to help Mom. They took me away from her,” her hand dropped from the table to clutch her stomach. “It seemed like forever that I was at the neighbor’s house. I thought she was dead. When my father eventually found me, I was inconsolable. He didn’t tell me anything, he just left me at the neighbors for a long time, until finally, he brought me to see my mom.” She rested her fist back up on the table.

“How old were you?”

“Four.”

Leo pictured everything in vivid detail. The idea of Daisy, practically a baby, going through that horror, made his blood boil. How could a real man have done that to his wife and child?

This time when he saw the knuckles on her fist turn bone-white he couldn’t help himself, he reached out and put his hand over hers, his thumb smoothing across her taut knuckles.

She looked up at him, her expression confused. What? Was she not used to being touched by a man?

“Leo?” she began.

“What happened then?”

Her breath shuddered.

“Mom didn’t look like Mom. She was so thin and gray. I wasn’t allowed to hug her, and she kept crying a lot. I remember being so scared. Mom ended up lying down in the backseat of the jeep on the drive out of the jungle. Usually, I sat on her lap, but I wasn’t allowed to do that either. My father tried to get me to sit on his lap up front, but I screamed and pulled away from him. I did everything possible to stay with my mom. He had to let me stay in the back, and I sat on the floorboards of the backseat. I got to hold her hand, even when she was asleep. On the entire two-day drive it seemed like I never slept once. I know that can’t be true, but even thinking back on that time as an adult, I think it was true, ya know?”

God, it was so heartbreaking. He nodded at her, willing her to continue. When she didn’t, he asked another question.

“What happened when you got out of the jungle?”

“Dad got Mom to a real hospital. This time I didn’t have a choice but to be separated from her. Again, I thought she was dead. But I didn’t cry, I didn’t make a scene. I just let myself be taken away from the big white building and accompanied my father to some room he had rented. I never talked. I remember him trying to make me eat, but I refused. He must have talked to me. He must have tried to get through to me that Mom was okay and in a hospital to get better, but nothing penetrated—in my four-year-old brain she was dead and gone. I was in shock. I wouldn’t eat, I wouldn’t talk, I wasn’t present.”

“How long did that last?”

Big hazel eyes looked up at him. “I don’t know. I never asked that question as I grew up. It seemed like forever as a child. But one day my father forced me into a car and we went back to the big white building that had eaten my mother. She came back out. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. She looked like my mother again, but I wasn’t the same little girl. I didn’t talk. I didn’t cry. I just clung to her. It was that way on the entire flight back to the United States. Finally, we got to my grandparent’s house and everything was better.”

She gave a false smile. “See? Happily ever after.”

Leo snorted. “I can just see the traumatized baby that you were.”